Media Statement by Dr. Ong Kian Ming, Assistant National Director for Political Education for the DAP and Pakatan Harapan candidate for the parliament seat of P102 Bangi, on the 24th of April 2018

According to the figures from the electoral roll which will be used in the upcoming 14th general elections (which was gazetted by the Election Commission on the 16th of April), the largest parliamentary constituency in Malaysia in terms of the number of voters is P102 Bangi (formerly Serdang) with 178,790 voters. The number of voters in P102 Bangi is more than 4 times the number of voters of P92 Sabak Bernam (40,863 voters) (also in the state of Selangor) which is also the 10th smallest parliamentary constituency in Peninsular Malaysia. P102 Bangi, which I have been nominated as the Pakatan Harapan candidate for, has overtaken P109 Kapar as the largest parliament seat in Malaysia (P109 Kapar was the largest parliament seat in GE2013).

The top 10 largest parliament seats in Malaysia (all of which are in Peninsular Malaysia) were all won by opposition parties in GE2013. Five were won by the DAP, 4 by PKR and 1 by PAS (See Table 1 below).

Thank you, Tan Sri Speaker, for allowing me to take part in this very important debate.

Firstly, I would like to strongly urge the Prime Minister to be present to answer the questions pertaining to this report after the tabling of this report for the 2nd reading. This is his constitutional responsibility.

In Article 8 of the 13th Schedule of the Federal Constitution, it is clearly stated that the Election Commission, having completed the delimitation exercise report, must submit the report to the Prime Minister. In Article 9 of the 13th Schedule of the Federal Constitution, it is also clearly stated that the Prime Minister is responsible to lay the report before the Members of Parliament in the House of Representatives, with or without modifying, the recommendations in the report.

Since it is the Prime Minister who receives the final delimitation report from the Election Commission and since only the Prime Minister can make modifications to the delimitation report before it is tabled in parliament, we need his presence in parliament to explain to us, the details in the delimitation report, and to inform us exactly where he has made modifications to the final delimitation exercise report which has been tabled in parliament.